La dernière révision de la Constitution chinoise

Lors de la deuxième session plénière de la xe Assemblée populaire nationale (APN) qui s’est tenue du 5 au 14 mars 2004, la Constitution de la République populaire de Chine (RPC) a été à nouveau révisée. Comme d’habitude, les médias officiels et les députés ont salué la « signification profonde et la portée considérable » de l’événement. La Constitution chinoise compte parmi les textes fondamentaux les plus fréquemment révisés au monde ; elle l’a été quatre fois depuis son adoption en 1982 : e..

Editorial : Law in Context for the Digital Age

https://journals.latrobe.edu.au/index.php/law-in-context/article/view/91We introduce both the new inception of Law in Context - A Socio-legal Journal and the continuing issue of LiC 36 (1). The editorial provides a brief historical account of the Journal since its inception in the early 1980s, in the context of the evolution of the Law & Society movement. It also describes the changes produced in the digital age by the emergence of the Web of Data, Big Data, and the Internet of Things. The convergence between Law & Society and Artificial Intelligence & Law is also discussed. Finally, we introduce briefly the articles included in this issue

People's Republic of China : legal response to Covid 19

Covid-19 first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, with the first mass outbreak starting there in January 2020. According to media reports, the earliest cases (though not ‘Patient Zero’) could be traced to as early as 17 November 2019. A historically unprecedented lockdown of an entire city of 11 million people and, slightly later, an entire province was imposed on 23 January 2020. The lockdown measures were so severe and strict that they were described by the World Health Organization’s country representative to China, Dr Gauden Galee, as ‘new to science’ that ‘has not been tried before as a public health measure.’ Various restrictions were also imposed nationwide from January to April 2020. Through these lockdown measures, China seemed to have controlled the ‘first wave’ of the pandemic by early April 2020 when Wuhan began lifting its strictest lockdown measures including the blockage of outbound traffic. On 7 April 2020, the Central Leading Group for the Prevention and Control of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic and the State Council Joint Mechanism for the Prevention and Control of Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia Epidemic each released its guidelines on resumption of work in China. By June 2020, China had declared a ‘decisive victory’ over the pandemic and a return to normality, albeit with ongoing prevention and control

MicroRNA function in muscle development

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of non-coding RNAs of [approximately]22 nucleotides in length that post-transcriptionally regulate gene expression. While there are more than 600 miRNAs identified in human genome, the biological functions of miRNAs are largely unknown. Here we show that microRNA-1 (miR-1) and microRNA-133 (miR-133) are specifically expressed in cardiac and skeletal muscle. Paradoxically, miR-1 and miR-133 exert opposing effects during skeletal muscle development in vitro and in vivo. miR-1 promotes myogenesis by targeting histone deacetylase 4 (HDAC4), a signal dependent chromatin regulator that represses MEF2 activity. MEF2, in turn, potently activates miR-1/-133 expression. In contrast, miR-133 enhances myoblast proliferation by repressing serum response factor (SRF), an essential regulator for muscle proliferation and differentiaiton. Together, these findings suggest that miR-1 and miR-133 are integrated into existing genetic circuits that control skeletal muscle development. We address the function of miRNAs during heart development using mouse genetic approaches. Cardiac-specific deletion of Dicer, a RNase III endonuclease responsible for miRNA maturation, leads to rapidly progressive dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), heart failure, and postnatal lethality. Dicer mutant mice show misexpression of cardiac contractile proteins and profound sarcomere disarray. Functional analyses indicate significantly reduced heart rates and decreased fractional shortening of Dicer mutant hearts. Consistent with the role of Dicer in animal hearts, Dicer expression was decreased in end-stage human DCM and failing hearts and, most importantly, a significant increase of Dicer expression was observed in those hearts after left ventricle assist devices were inserted to improve cardiac function. Together, our studies demonstrate essential roles of Dicer in cardiac contraction and indicate that miRNAs play critical functions in normal cardiac development and function To examine the potential involvement of miRNAs in muscle stem cells, known as satellite cells, we examined miRNA expression profiles during satellite cell differentiation and skeletal muscle regeneration. miR-1 and its isoform, miR-206, are sharply up-regulated during satellite cell differentiation and down-regulated in muscle injury. miR-1 and -206 facilitate satellite cell differentiation by restricting satellite cell proliferative potential. We identify Pax7, an essential stem cell maintenance gene of satellite cells, as one of direct regulatory targets of miR-1 and -206. Knock down in vivo using antagomirs specifically against miR-1 and -206 in neonatal mouse skeletal muscle enhances satellite cell proliferation and Pax7 protein levels. Conversly, sustained Pax7 expression due to the loss of miR-1 and -206 repressive elements at Pax7 3' UTR inhibits myogenic progenitor differentiation. Our studies reveal a critical role of miR-1 and -206 in satellite cells and suggest that miRNAs participate in a regulatory circuit that allows rapid gene program transiton from cell proliferation to differentiation by repressing the expression of stem cell maintenance gene

Regional Financial Development Scale, Structure, Efficiency and Economic Growth: A Dynamic Analysis

With the panel data in 29 provinces and cities in China from 1991 to 2007, this paper applies the dynamic panel data model to empirically explore the relationships between financial development scale, structure, efficiency and economic growth. The results show that after controlling other factors, financial scale has significantly positive impact on economic growth in middle and western regions but negative in eastern region; while financial structure and efficiency exhibit significantly positive effects only in eastern region. This paper then adopts the model of panel data VAR to investigate the causality relationships between them. It finds that the “demand-following” phenomenon between financial development and economic growth occurs in eastern region, the “supply-leading” phenomenon happens in western region, and yet the middle region shows no obvious pattern of financial development. Key words: Financial scale; Financial structure; Financial efficiency; Economic growt

The Revision of the Constitution in the PRC

At the Second Plenary Session of the Tenth National People’s Congress (March 5th-14th 2004), the Constitution of the PRC underwent yet another revision. As usual, the revision of the Constitution is praised by the Chinese media and deputies to the Congress as “having deep and far reaching significance”, etc.. This periodical revision of the Constitution—four times (1988, 1993, 1999 and 2004) since its adoption in 1982—makes the Chinese Constitution one of the most frequently revised, if not t..